


Courfeyrac and the Pocketwatch of Doom

by theangrywarlock



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: F/M, and Courfeyrac, and kicking of the balls, small bit of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangrywarlock/pseuds/theangrywarlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marius actually has a chance to be Eponine's knight for once. And, in typical Marius fashion, he derps it up. From Les Amis to Javert, Marius tries very hard and ends up very trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Courfeyrac and the Pocketwatch of Doom

He lived next door to a sordid drama. The nights he spent translating were interrupted by howls of indignation and the odd slap of flesh against flesh. When his neighbors got violent, Marius became more quiet. The yelling, he could understand. Everyone lost their temper. But the violence chilled him to his core. The closest he had ever gotten to violence within his life was when Theodule's teasing turned into a punch to the arm. Theodule had always been chastised whenever he stepped out of bounds, but there was no angry Gillenormand here to handle the neighbors. Marius tried not to wish that there was. He was an independent man looking to make his own way now. He would have to learn how to deal with unruly neighbors that sometimes kept him up much later due to their fights.

If only they didn't have daughters.

"How do you handle it?" He asked Eponine in the morning hours when he met her at the well outside.

"Handle what?"

Her hands were callused upon her palms but the back of her hands looked soft. He sometimes wondered if the rest of her body was the same. Hard in places that were exposed to the extremes of the weather or human anger, but soft where she wouldn't show. It was a silly thought. "Your family."

Eponine considered multiple answers to that question. She shrugged.

Marius went on. "What if I could help you?"

Drawing the bucket out of the well, Eponine gave him a soft smile. "And what would you do, Monsieur Marius?"

Here Marius was at a loss. He only desired to do something. To not stand by the well like an idiot who couldn't think of the right words to say, who was powerless against the elder Jondrettes, who could only conjecture ideas and fantasize about making them a reality. "I would make them stop," he finally said. It was such a simple answer, one without any real backing.

Eponine took the words for what they were worth and just nodded. "It's enough that you would want to." A polite way of saying that it was the thought that counted. But thoughts meant nothing when action could not be placed behind it, and Marius was not a fighter.

He did, however, know a few fighters. He got his opportunity the night Courfeyrac's watch was pilfered.

"It was defenseless, I'll admit," Courfeyrac was saying to Bossuet and Joly. "But that was hardly my own fault. It didn't keep perfect time, but it was a sentimental item! Passed down from my grandfather and from his and so on. Probably since the day watches were created, or at least watches with fobs. There's a trivia question for you. When were they created? And here's the answer: It doesn't matter. My own was stolen by a dandy no less." He finished his speech with a sulk as he threw himself down into the waiting chair.

"A dandy?" Joly repeated. "Wouldn't they have their own pocket watches?"

"You would think that, wouldn't you? That there would exist a standardized palette of what would constitute a dandy, and if there was one I would certainly be the expert within it, but here it is, my friends." Courfeyrac leaned further against the table, drawing in Bossuet and Joly, and despite the closeness Marius could still hear what he had to say. "He was a fraud."

Marius was still in the phase of 'walking ghost' when it came to the Musain. He attended the meetings not to learn more, but to settle Courfeyrac down a little. He came because he often had little choice, and the warmth of the Musain was as good a place as any for him to work. The pretense of having friends also helped some, even though he often had difficulty following along with the conversations.

Courfeyrac's latest excursion interested him a little. He had been looking for a way to pay back Courfeyrac for all the help that his friend gave to him.

Bossuet laughed. "Was the card he carried not a proper color for you? Is there a fraud commission society that we ought to report this event to? He has your watch now! Does that make him a slightly larger percentage to being a true dandy and does that lessen your commitment?"

"You would make light of this," Courfeyrac cried. "You would laugh at my torment when I tell you that I've been ripped off by a thief and a fraud! Perhaps this means nothing at all to you, but the day that I get property taken from me from such a person is the day I find myself ashamed at calling myself-"

"What did he look like?" Joly cut in as he tugged Courfeyrac's sleeve to pull his friend back down. "Perhaps we can keep an eye out for him."

So mollified, Courfeyrac sat back down and regaled his friends with the description of the thief.

Marius listened in and felt several pangs of familiarity. He had seen the man Courfeyrac so described before.

"Worse, he had a knife! He pulled a knife on me," Courfeyrac recounted. "A true gentleman has no need of blades. Not when we have our words. It's easier to cut a man with words than with a knife, and he certainly bleeds more. All the same, I thought it best to give him what he wanted and send him on his way. He clearly doesn't understand life, liberty, and another man's rights."

Marius turned in his seat to face the trio's table. "I think I know who you're talking about." All at once, the attention shifted to him and he felt a quick flare of fear. Attention was rarely a good thing for him and he was still trying to learn who these people were. All the same, he swallowed hard and told them of the gang of thugs that sometimes came by his house to speak with the Jondrettes.

He didn't mention the abuse of the two daughters, but he had a feeling that he didn't have to. If Courfeyrac came by, if Courfeyrac saw what happened, perhaps he would be able to help Eponine in a way that Marius could not. Perhaps the lost watch was a blessing in disguise.

He finished recounting what he saw of this mysterious false dandy when Enjolras and Combeferre came into the back room, and Courfeyrac came so swiftly out of his chair that one would think a firecracker had gone off in his pants. "Enjolras! You must hear about my tale of the loss of liberty!"

Marius blocked out the rest of the meeting. He remained for an hour, hoping Courfeyrac would ask him more questions about the place, but soon went back home. After a day or so, he forgot about the incident.

Four days after the stolen watch, Marius had another reason to seek outside help. This came in the form of a crime, and he spoke to the Inspector of police. Javert wasn't a man Marius could see himself doing much business with, but his chats were short and he was given a gun to protect himself.

How devastating it was to learn the true identities of the Jondrettes! To know that the person Marius had plotted against was the one who he should be protecting. It was a terrible blow of fate to land him in this position. Dare he shoot the gun? It wouldn't be for his own sake, surely, but for Eponine's. Perhaps he could change his debt from Thenardier to her? Would it work like that? Would his father feel absolution from beyond the grave? Or was that too easy of an answer.

Half of the solution came in the form of the police who stormed in without the gun going off, who kept the so-called Patron Minette in place.

The other half of the solution came in the form of sudden anarchy. A group of masked men entered the house, shot upstairs, and promptly devastated the entire scene. The police turned on them and were quickly brought down. Marius had never seen so many fists flying. Inspector Javert tried to use his nightstick upon one of the masked men, but he was displaced by a low kick to the nether regions. The only one who was spared was Madame Thenardier who was wise enough to keep herself to herself in the middle of so much chaos.

At long last, everyone in the room was sprawled out on the floor, save for Madame Thenardier, the old man who was nowhere to be seen, and the masked men. One of them darted forward and yanked a watch off of the larger man who was a part of the Patron-Minette.

"Cheers!" Was all that was said. It was a jovial cry of triumph even as the strange group departed in the same manner in which they came in.

Marius followed behind them at a distance. He was not so naive as to be unable to put things together. His two outs for Eponine had fallen into one another, and the gendarmes did not mix well with Republicans. In the end, he wasn't sure what was accomplished.

"Monsieur Marius?"

The whisper on the wind came from the side of the building and he could not help but run to the voice. Marius lacked the words to convey just what had happened upstairs. Would Eponine believe him? Would she understand it if he tried to explain why he did what he did? Would she be angry at the arrest of so many?

He held her gently. "Best not to go inside just yet," he said, hating that he couldn't make his voice more comforting in the chilling wind.

"Then where can we go?"

We, she said. Yes, we. He would want to go with her and avoid the wrath of Javert who likely was not in the best of moods right now. "I have a friend that we can probably stay with for a day or so. It will do for now." He hoped Courfeyrac had a spare mattress or an idea of where they could stay. Propriety be damned, he would make sure that Eponine did not come to any more harm and that was far more important than societal rules.

Perhaps he could be made a revolutionary yet.


End file.
